This week, we all assisted in a state-sponsored drama where the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, publicly made a mockery of Justice by allegedly forcing a battered woman back to the home she was assaulted in. The woman, Dr. Ifeyinwa Angbo, made a public video where she narrated how her husband, Mr. Pius Angbo has been assaulting her since they married six years ago. Nigerians at home and in the diaspora...
Christianity is a way of life, but I bet you, in Nigeria, it’s more and more a creed that you just need to pretend to profess. When the Apostles were called Christians in Antioch, it was not about their eloquence, for though many were eloquent, they were not the best orators in the town. There were categories of public speakers and sophists who made their living entertaining their audiences. It was not...
You are a missionary -religious or diocesan – and all you can boast of offering to your community of missions is the record of grottoes and church structures. Church halls and podiums that serve more to goats and sheep, chapels of adoration and orations, rebuilding an already existing parish house or the multiplication of unnecessary structures in the church. Golden tabernacle alters in marble, imported chasubles, too costly parish schools, etc. And...
I’m a soro soke generation missionary. I speak up when things are not going on well. I know that my generation was lucky to have been born while the digital age was still modelling our current society. We were lucky to see many changes occur in our formation years. Few guys ahead of our generation were expelled from the seminary for having cellular phones. Some were even considered to have no vocation...
There has been this argument on why children must take new names at their baptism. Fortunately, it has been proven that it’s not a must and has no canonical implication. But this doesn’t, however, make it wrong in itself. People should be able to do it if they wish or need it, but no one should make it law, as the Church has no law. But recently, another question about women taking...
I would like to be wrong, but I am afraid time might prove me right. With the recent attacks on 5G installations in different parts of the world, we are facing a new form of weaponisation. But the problem is that, contrary to the traditional way of using social and technological platforms as war grounds, the battlefield has just shifted to a spiritual realm. Religion is being weaponized to create a narrative...
On the 1st of March 2020, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria CBCN carried out a peaceful protest against the killings of Nigerian citizens. The peaceful protest was the second action the Catholic Bishops carried out as a National Conference during this Lenten period. We remember that a few days before the beginning of Lent, the bishops asked Catholics, both within the country and in the diaspora, to dress in black on...
L’année passée, le Pape François avait convoqué un synode pour réfléchir[1] sur la situation de l’Église locale des diocèses d’Amazonie. Et, en toute humilité, il a voulu inclure l’Église universelle dans cette réflexion. Mais, ce que le Pape aurait peut-être ignoré, c’est que l’égoïsme a longtemps été christianisé dans nos sociétés. Voici comment les mois qui ont précédé ce synode furent un moment d’épreuve pour la papauté de François. Dans divers milieux ecclésiaux...
Many people think that the three greatest monotheistic religions are solely related to one another because of their belief in one God. Evidently, it is one of the things they share, but that is not all. There is this other aspect which, though is often ignored, remains one of the greatest aspects of the monotheistic belief. It is the belief in the coming of the Messiah. Yet, there are some serious differences...
A Pastoral Statement by the Catholic Bishops Conference, Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, Issued at the End of their First Plenary Meeting held at the Assumpta Pastoral Centre, Owerri, from the 21st to 22ndJanuary, 2020. Preamble We, the Catholic Bishops of the Owerri Ecclesiastical Province, held our first Plenary meeting of the year at the Assumpta Pastoral Centre, Owerri, from the 21st – 22nd of January, 2020. Having deliberated on a number of pastoral...
